Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, this is Justin Richmond from the Broken Record podcast.
Speaker 1: Join me this June for a live taping of Broken
Speaker 1: Record at the Tribeca Festival. We're all bee in conversation
Speaker 1: with Infinity Song, a New York based soft rock band
Speaker 1: comprised of four siblings who will also be doing a
Speaker 1: couple of songs for us. You'll hear the artist and
Speaker 1: a career spanning conversation about their inspirations and dynamic styles.
Speaker 1: We'll be at the SVA Theater on June twelve at
Speaker 1: eight thirty pm. Defund tickets, wos A tribecafilm dot com
Speaker 1: slash Broken Record all lowercase. That's tribecafilm dot com slash
Speaker 1: Broken Record. Hope to see there. Shirley Manson, the iconic
Speaker 1: Scottish singer songwriter, rose to eight girl status in the
Speaker 1: nineties as a fierce and magnetic frontwoman of Garbage. Though
Speaker 1: her tenure with the band now spans over three decades,
Speaker 1: Shirley was already a season lead singer when she joined
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six. She was invited to audition for
Speaker 1: Garbage after guitarist Steve Marker spotted her in a music
Speaker 1: video for her previous band Angelfish. Today, Garbage is sold
Speaker 1: over seventeen million albums worldwide, with all original members still
Speaker 1: going strong. The band is now preparing to release their
Speaker 1: eighth studio album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light,
Speaker 1: and Shirley's unmistakable voice remains as sharp and compelling as ever.
Speaker 1: On today's episode, Lee Rose sits down with Shirley Manson
Speaker 1: to discussed how an unexpected piece of advice from an
Speaker 1: acting coach during her time on the Fox sci fi
Speaker 1: series Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles continues to shape her
Speaker 1: creative process. Shirley also opens up about the challenges of
Speaker 1: communicating with her bandmates and shares a hilarious story about
Speaker 1: meeting one of her musical heroes, Patti Smith. This is
Speaker 1: broken record, real musicians, real conversations. This episode is brought
Speaker 1: to you by Defender, a vehicle engineered to meet challenges
Speaker 1: head on so you and explore with confidence. Adventure Seekers
Speaker 1: and risk takers can explore the full Defender lineup at
Speaker 1: land ROVERUSA dot com. Here's Leah Rose with Shirley Manson.
Speaker 2: I've been watching and listening to a lot of interviews
Speaker 2: that you've done over the years. And I heard you
Speaker 2: talking about working with an acting coach, maybe after working
Speaker 2: on Terminator, and you learned some really interesting thing or
Speaker 2: got some really interesting insight from the acting coach. Can
Speaker 2: you remember what she told you and how that sort
Speaker 2: of influenced you at the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I studied under an acting coach called Sharon Chatton in
Speaker 4: Los Angeles, and she absolutely changed my whole life and
Speaker 4: my relationship to my music, to my work, I guess
Speaker 4: for one of a better term, and I think about
Speaker 4: her almost every single day.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she taught me so much about not just being
Speaker 4: an art but being a human and being trying to
Speaker 4: be in the moment, which is such a profound gift
Speaker 4: if you are able to teach yourself to live in
Speaker 4: the moment and not worry about tomorrow or yesterday. And
Speaker 4: up until meeting her, I was much more fearful, I guess,
Speaker 4: of trying to be creative, and then she just taught
Speaker 4: me how to sort of sink into it and play
Speaker 4: instead of plan, and that was profound. That's just one
Speaker 4: of the very many things she taught me. But that
Speaker 4: was a real kicker for me, is how to be
Speaker 4: in the moment of creation and not be rigid, but
Speaker 4: to be really fluid and just go with whatever is
Speaker 4: coming out and investigate that and chase that rabbit and
Speaker 4: not try and force something that perhaps was preordained.
Speaker 2: Do you remember the first project, creative project that you
Speaker 2: applied her advice to and did that turn out differently
Speaker 2: for you?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: My band Garbage had been on a long hiatus for
Speaker 4: a lot of different reasons. But we had been dropped
Speaker 4: by Entrascope Records, and my mother had been diagnosed with
Speaker 4: a very extreme and aggressive form of dementia called Pick's disease,
Speaker 4: which took her out of the game in like eighteen months.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: And then two of my really close girlfriends, one lost
Speaker 4: her young husband and the other lost her six year
Speaker 4: old son. And it was all during this hiatus that
Speaker 4: I was on from the band, and that took up
Speaker 4: a lot of my time and energy. But I also,
Speaker 4: as you said rightly pointed out, I was on the
Speaker 4: Sarah Connor Chronicles on the Fox Networks. It was a
Speaker 4: big show, a big TV show. And then I started
Speaker 4: to study with Sharon and then I got back with
Speaker 4: the band I think in about twenty ten, and we
Speaker 4: started work on Not Your kind of People, which was
Speaker 4: our fifth studio record, and so I started plowing it.
Speaker 4: Then the things I'd learned over that course of time
Speaker 4: in my life, which was really a very difficult and
Speaker 4: tumultuous time, And yeah, I've just gotten better at adhering
Speaker 4: to the lessons Sharon taught me as time has passed.
Speaker 2: Is there anything specific you can point to on the
Speaker 2: new album that maybe is a result from that advice
Speaker 2: from her?
Speaker 4: Well, I immediately think of have We Met the Void? Which
Speaker 4: was I was in the studio with Duke, the guitarist
Speaker 4: in Garbage. It was just the two of us, and
Speaker 4: we had been talking about a book he was reading
Speaker 4: about witchcraft, and we sort of were chuckling together, and
Speaker 4: I was like, let's try and write a song about that.
Speaker 4: You know, about how women were destroyed by because they
Speaker 4: were powerful, or they were intelligent, or they were intuitive.
Speaker 4: They were put to death for all these reasons. That's
Speaker 4: what I want to write about. And I went, I
Speaker 4: hopped into the vocal booth and he played this particular
Speaker 4: piece of music that he had written with the band,
Speaker 4: and I was determined I was going to write about
Speaker 4: witchcraft or witches, and instead I heard the first few
Speaker 4: bars of the music, and I just had a picture
Speaker 4: of myself when I was a young woman in my
Speaker 4: early twenties. It was a situation that had happened in
Speaker 4: real life, and I just sort of swung into it,
Speaker 4: and this bizarre story that had occurred to me in
Speaker 4: my life came out of nowhere. I hadn't even thought
Speaker 4: about it in years. And that's kind of what I
Speaker 4: mean of like just having a thread of an idea
Speaker 4: and then it just turning left and be willing to
Speaker 4: follow it, even though that wasn't my intention. It was
Speaker 4: like I just realized I saw the thread, I grabbed it,
Speaker 4: and I just followed the thread into the void. And
Speaker 4: so that would be one of that would be a
Speaker 4: really like sort of an example of what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that song,
Speaker 2: and I was going to ask you how did you
Speaker 2: get in the headspace to record that, because it's like
Speaker 2: you're growling and it's so it's so raw and feels
Speaker 2: a little bit primal and sinister.
Speaker 4: Well, it is sinister. It's definitely sinister. And it was
Speaker 4: a very dark experience. You know, when you find out
Speaker 4: you know your partner is having another and entirely different
Speaker 4: relationship outside of the one that you thought you had.
Speaker 4: And so, yeah, that song.
Speaker 2: Is very dark. I love it.
Speaker 4: I love it too. It's oh, I love it too.
Speaker 4: And it feels so personal, you know that. And it's
Speaker 4: funny this sort of joy you experience when you can
Speaker 4: throw in really personal things into a lyric, you know,
Speaker 4: being able to name my city that felt like radical
Speaker 4: to me, you know. And I love the line, have
Speaker 4: you motherfuckers been seeing each other? You know? Something I've
Speaker 4: said at the time, And it's something that you know,
Speaker 4: I've said quite a few times since, you know, And
Speaker 4: I think anyone who's ever been cheated on can really
Speaker 4: relate to that line, you know, that moment when you're like,
Speaker 4: hold on a minute, something crazy is happening here, and
Speaker 4: it's not really what I expected to happen to me today,
Speaker 4: you know, totally. Yeah, it's such a horrible feeling, you know,
Speaker 4: it's just a horrible, horrible feeling.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Isn't it awful that you can still feel that too
Speaker 2: so many years later?
Speaker 4: But isn't it also wonderful, you know, to be still
Speaker 4: in contact with those really raw feelings of your youth
Speaker 4: when you were an entirely different person and you didn't
Speaker 4: know what you do now. I think there's something really
Speaker 4: glorious about that and exciting. You know, It's like, ah,
Speaker 4: I remember her. I can remember what I was wearing.
Speaker 4: I can remember you know how I wore my hair
Speaker 4: and my makeup, and you know the bag I used
Speaker 4: to use. And it's like a real sort of Proustian
Speaker 4: moment right of the Madeline. It's like, ah, I like
Speaker 4: being able to touch all my ghosts totally.
Speaker 2: Do you ever wonder if you miss remember things? Like
Speaker 2: if you were to actually go back and see yourself
Speaker 2: or just be sort of like an eyewitness to your
Speaker 2: early life, what if it's totally different. I think about
Speaker 2: that all the time.
Speaker 4: I know for a fact everything will be different. You know.
Speaker 4: I know that our memories are so flawed, but I
Speaker 4: do believe that you sort of remember the important parts
Speaker 4: of the storyline. You know, you get it. There was
Speaker 4: you know, a deceit that you know and you were furious,
Speaker 4: and so you remember.
Speaker 3: The big picture.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the details not so much, although again in this song,
Speaker 4: I remember these crazy details because my partner lived opposite
Speaker 4: Goudy Cathedral in Barcelona, and I can remember standing looking
Speaker 4: at this young woman thinking, oh my god, you're having
Speaker 4: an affair with my boyfriend, and hearing the bells of
Speaker 4: the cathedral chime.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean. It was so weird. It
Speaker 3: was so weird.
Speaker 4: But then again, maybe somebody'll say, yea, Guidi's bell stopped
Speaker 4: working one hundred years ago, so maybe I'm completely tripping
Speaker 4: as well. But yeah, I guess that's part of the
Speaker 4: fun of memory. You survived it, and the details probably
Speaker 4: don't matter that much.
Speaker 2: Yes, what is the dynamic like when you're in the
Speaker 2: studio with Duke and you're entering this really private, intense moment.
Speaker 2: I know, maybe you were in a vocal booth by yourself,
Speaker 2: but do you feel comfortable enough where you can just
Speaker 2: totally go there with him there?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean I feel comfortable with the whole band, you know,
Speaker 4: the three of them, Steve, Butch and Duke. I used
Speaker 4: to feel very self conscious when I went into the
Speaker 4: vocal booth, and I was not happy particularly, I felt
Speaker 4: very isolated and judged. And now again going back to
Speaker 4: Shan Chattan and my acting teacher, she taught me how
Speaker 4: to switch that all off. She was like, you're not
Speaker 4: there to serve anybody.
Speaker 3: You're there to.
Speaker 4: Serve your creative instinct. Whereas when I first joined the band,
Speaker 4: because I joined the band under strange circumstances, you know,
Speaker 4: Butch was, you know, one of the premier producers in
Speaker 4: America in the nineties, and he had a lot of weight,
Speaker 4: and there was so much respect, and he had this
Speaker 4: power that I felt that I did not have. And
Speaker 4: I also, you know, really wanted the band to be
Speaker 4: proud of me. They had selected me to do this job.
Speaker 4: I wanted to do the very, very best job I
Speaker 4: could do, and as a result, I think, looking back,
Speaker 4: as a young woman trying to prove herself, it was
Speaker 4: difficult and I didn't necessarily enjoy the creative aspect of it.
Speaker 4: I found it taxing, and as I said, I felt
Speaker 4: like I was sort of being judged, and so so
Speaker 4: a lot of the joy of creativity that I experience
Speaker 4: now I was kind of robbed from me, not through
Speaker 4: anybody else's fault, but my own. I hastened to add,
Speaker 4: this was all imagined in my own mind. But now
Speaker 4: I have no self consciousness at all. I don't care
Speaker 4: if I make mistakes or if I'm singing out of
Speaker 4: tune as long as I've sort of getting the idea across,
Speaker 4: you know, Whereas back in the day, I'd really freak
Speaker 4: out if I didn't hit a note, or I would
Speaker 4: be scared to try something vocally that I didn't know
Speaker 4: I could absolutely pull off with a plum. I didn't
Speaker 4: want to fail in front of them, and so I didn't.
Speaker 4: And now I'm like, I'm willing to try anything, and
Speaker 4: if they like it, they like it. If they don't,
Speaker 4: then if as long as I like it, I feel good.
Speaker 2: What is the creative dynamic within the band? Like, now,
Speaker 2: how do the songs come together? Is it usually the
Speaker 2: guys go off and make tracks on their own and
Speaker 2: then bring you in and then you write to the track,
Speaker 2: or how do the songs get made?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: This record was very different from any other record we've
Speaker 4: ever made because I had two hip surgeries, two hip replacements,
Speaker 4: both at the beginning of the making of this record
Speaker 4: and at the very end the dovetail of making this record,
Speaker 4: I had another hip placement and no different hip. Oh yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm fully bionic. It's super hot. I'm so Lindsey Wagner.
Speaker 4: But as a result of being mechanically broken, I spent
Speaker 4: a lot of time in bed, and I had a
Speaker 4: lot of brain fog because I was on a lot
Speaker 4: pain killers, and I didn't want to go into the studio.
Speaker 4: I didn't feel I felt very vulnerable, and I was
Speaker 4: arguably a little depressed. But I knew that if we
Speaker 4: wasted too much time not making our next record, it
Speaker 4: would be a decade until we got another record out.
Speaker 4: And I was determined that wouldn't be the case. And
Speaker 4: so I urged the band to go and work without me,
Speaker 4: which is a first. Like usually we do everything together.
Speaker 4: It were allway in the same room pretty much, you know,
Speaker 4: and in this case, they went into Butcher's home studio
Speaker 4: and they would send me musical ideas as it came
Speaker 4: to them, and then I would work, you know, on
Speaker 4: my belodies or my lyrics or whatnot by myself, and
Speaker 4: that I've never done that, and it was strange, and
Speaker 4: I do think it was great for me in one regard,
Speaker 4: but it also unfortunately underscored for me how much of
Speaker 4: an outsider I remain in Garbage in that, you know,
Speaker 4: there are three men of the same age, pretty much
Speaker 4: come from the same part of the country. They love
Speaker 4: each other very much, and they're really tight. And the
Speaker 4: three of them are you know, quite quiet in a
Speaker 4: funny way and a little uncommunicative, you know, that very
Speaker 4: sort of stiff upper Midwestern lip that you can encounter
Speaker 4: a lot. So they don't really communicate with me creatively,
Speaker 4: which I find as I get older harder and harder
Speaker 4: to navigate. When I was young, I'd put in a
Speaker 4: lot of energy into facilitating communication within the band, and
Speaker 4: then I just got well, then I got broken. When
Speaker 4: you can't walk, it's like, fuck everything, Fuck everyone. I'm
Speaker 4: just trying to literally learn how to get up out
Speaker 4: of a seat and walk across the room. And I
Speaker 4: didn't have any energy to spend on anybody else or
Speaker 4: anything else, and as a result, there was very little communication.
Speaker 4: And I find that hard because I'm such a communicative person.
Speaker 4: I gasp for contact and connection. And I feel like
Speaker 4: me and the boys are I mean, we love each other.
Speaker 4: We've got a great dynamic. If you came into a room,
Speaker 4: you'd be like, oh, they're all great. They really get
Speaker 4: along and we do and it's lovely, but creatively that
Speaker 4: it feels to me like there's quite gulf now in
Speaker 4: a funny way between us, which hopefully at some point
Speaker 4: we can manage, you know better. I'm certainly more robust
Speaker 4: now than I was three years ago, you know, when
Speaker 4: I started upon this sort of physical period of disintegration
Speaker 4: and rehabilitation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so are you health wise? Are you doing better now?
Speaker 2: Where now are?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: Be warned, she's back.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it was very hard. You know.
Speaker 4: It's really changed the way I look at the world
Speaker 4: and look at other people, and it's sort of forced
Speaker 4: me to really try and tap into my compassion, which
Speaker 4: I I've never been famous for my compassion. And now
Speaker 4: I realize how much people are dealing with privately. And
Speaker 4: I now walk down the street and I can see
Speaker 4: people's bodies move a certain way and I'm like, Oh,
Speaker 4: they're going to need a hit replacement, or oh their
Speaker 4: knees fucked, or oh my god, you know this person
Speaker 4: doesn't look well. I mean, it's just it's horrible. It's
Speaker 4: a horrible, like sort of education I got that I
Speaker 4: wish I hadn't. But at the same time, it's also
Speaker 4: been quite magical in a funny way. It's taught me
Speaker 4: to be more patient with my body. It's taught me
Speaker 4: to try harder, focusing on tiny tiny increments, Like I'm
Speaker 4: a big stroke person. I like, you know, I'm fast
Speaker 4: and I'm furious.
Speaker 3: And it taught me.
Speaker 4: Recovery taught me to like, if you can literally walk
Speaker 4: a centimeter, that's okay, you'll walk to tomorrow. Wow, that
Speaker 4: was brand new for me because I have never been
Speaker 4: that kind of person.
Speaker 2: So do you really feel like you weren't a compassionate person?
Speaker 2: I feel I obviously I don't know you, but I
Speaker 2: feel like just hearing you talk and you seem very empathetic,
Speaker 2: and you seem like you take a lot on and
Speaker 2: you you seem compassionate.
Speaker 4: I mean, I've always had compassion though for the big picture,
Speaker 4: and I'm really talking more about the small picture of people, individuals,
Speaker 4: individual interaction. I think I find it harder to tune
Speaker 4: into my sympathy and understanding of an individual in front
Speaker 4: of me as opposed to a cause. Oh interesting, yeah, everything,
Speaker 4: Like I've never noticed small things when I was young.
Speaker 4: I mean I really didn't. I didn't notice nature. Like
Speaker 4: my father is really interested in environmental protection, and he
Speaker 4: would take me on nature rambles, you know, and he'd
Speaker 4: be pointing at mushrooms or the color of a leaf
Speaker 4: or the texture of a stone, and it would bore
Speaker 4: the shit out of me, you know. And then as
Speaker 4: I got older, I noticed my first husband was similar.
Speaker 4: We'd be like on a bus going into town and.
Speaker 3: He'd be like, oh, look at the little bird on the.
Speaker 4: Branch, and I'd be like what huh, And I'd be
Speaker 4: in my brain, you know, thinking about God only knows what.
Speaker 3: Now that I'm.
Speaker 4: Older, I've we started to see the tiny thing and
Speaker 4: I'm so blown away by it, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 4: I've missed out on so much in my life by
Speaker 4: not paying attention to any of this. You know, there's
Speaker 4: so much beauty that I was oblivious to. So I
Speaker 4: guess that's what I mean about, like compassion has been
Speaker 4: sort of ignited, I think by my attention to small things.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Shirley Manson and Lea Rose.
Speaker 2: After the Break, I saw on your last album, No
Speaker 2: God's No Masters, you had a song called Waiting for God,
Speaker 2: and then on the new album, you have a song
Speaker 2: the Day that I Met God. So I was curious
Speaker 2: how those songs in your mind, if there's any relationship
Speaker 2: to those songs, if they have a relationship to each other,
Speaker 2: and also, at this point in your life, what your
Speaker 2: relationship with God is?
Speaker 4: That might be the best question I've ever been asked
Speaker 4: in my life. Well, first of all, yes, there is
Speaker 4: a connection between the two songs, but I didn't realize
Speaker 4: that at the time, and it's only you know. Since
Speaker 4: we finished the record and I thought about no God,
Speaker 4: No Masters, and I thought about waiting for God to
Speaker 4: show up and its relationship to the day I met God,
Speaker 4: I realized they are absolutely interconnected, and one of the
Speaker 4: reasons being waiting for God.
Speaker 3: I wrote about.
Speaker 4: My long overdu shamefully over you awareness about black lives
Speaker 4: in America, I mean, though arguably the world. But it
Speaker 4: was triggered, my awareness really was triggered by the murder
Speaker 4: of George Floyd, and it again turned me around. The
Speaker 4: death of that man. The murder of that poor man
Speaker 4: made me realize I had a lot of work to do.
Speaker 4: I needed to educate myself. I was horrified by what
Speaker 4: happened to him. It was one of the most grotesque
Speaker 4: and a bomberable things I've ever seen, and it sent
Speaker 4: me off on a long journey towards educating myself about colonialism,
Speaker 4: about white supremacy, about racism, etc.
Speaker 3: Etc.
Speaker 4: And waiting for God was my dismay at a lot
Speaker 4: of the systemic injustices that exist worldwide, and then coming
Speaker 4: into making this record, as I mentioned earlier, i'd I
Speaker 4: had so much physical problems. Yeah, for lack of a
Speaker 4: better word, I realized that if I did not discipline
Speaker 4: myself to think differently from the mindset I was in
Speaker 4: when I made No God's No Masters, that I would
Speaker 4: probably destroy myself in some way or another, or I
Speaker 4: certainly would never recover my equilibrium both physically and emotionally.
Speaker 4: You know, in such a state, I couldn't afford to
Speaker 4: engage with my outrage that I'd employed. So if it
Speaker 4: lean no Gosna Masters, I realized, like, you are in peril,
Speaker 4: and you really need to look at the world differently,
Speaker 4: otherwise you really will put yourself back on your heels
Speaker 4: and possibly might never fully recover your vigor. And so,
Speaker 4: as I mentioned, I had these two hip surgeries, and
Speaker 4: I was taking a lot of pain medication in the first.
Speaker 3: Few weeks of both both surgeries.
Speaker 4: And I was kind of suffering from a really quite
Speaker 4: extreme brain fog. When the band sent me this piece
Speaker 4: of music, and I was on my treadmill during my
Speaker 4: rehab learning how to walk again, and just out of
Speaker 4: the blue, this song arrived in my head. It wasn't
Speaker 4: premeditated or anything. It was just like I came up.
Speaker 4: You know, the chords are so beautiful in the chorus,
Speaker 4: and I came up with what I think is a
Speaker 4: really beautiful melody, and these beautiful words appeared, and I
Speaker 4: was like, this is actually a really beautiful chorus. And
Speaker 4: I was shocked to realize that I had stumbled upon,
Speaker 4: arguably my faith in that moment with these words. I
Speaker 4: was like, this is something I believe in as someone
Speaker 4: who has rejected organized religion since I was eleven years old,
Speaker 4: and I told my dad I was no longer going
Speaker 4: to Sunday School and I cut myself off from the
Speaker 4: organized thinking of believing that.
Speaker 3: In that moment of writing that.
Speaker 4: Chorus, I was like, actually, oh my god, I've kind
Speaker 4: of found my faith here. This is what I believe in,
Speaker 4: This is what I would like to employ in my
Speaker 4: life as a sort of higher power.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about the role that religion played in
Speaker 2: your family growing up, because it seems like that wasn't
Speaker 2: a little thing. You telling your father that you're rejecting
Speaker 2: organized religion. How big of a deal was that?
Speaker 4: It was a huge deal for me as a child,
Speaker 4: and not solely because my dad made us go to
Speaker 4: school and we went to My parents went to the church.
Speaker 4: I just, out of my three sisters, for whatever reason,
Speaker 4: I was a child who really took Sunday School to heart.
Speaker 4: I was very engaged with Jesus. I loved all the imagery.
Speaker 4: I loved the lessons. I really believed in the Ten Commandments.
Speaker 4: I have, actually, and I'm shamed to say this, but
Speaker 4: I have read the New Bible from start to finish.
Speaker 4: That's how maniacal I was. A complete It shows you
Speaker 4: how nuts I was.
Speaker 3: So I really was shocked.
Speaker 4: As I started to grow up, I started to get
Speaker 4: the sense that most people were not true believers. I
Speaker 4: started noticing a lot of hypocrisy and it began to
Speaker 4: really upset me. And then by the time I was
Speaker 4: about eleven, I was just like, I'm no longer going
Speaker 4: to the church because it's full of hypocrites and I
Speaker 4: don't believe in what's being spidered. I think this is
Speaker 4: a whole load of bullshit. And the minister I railed against.
Speaker 3: I felt his ego.
Speaker 4: As a child, I felt this ego rather than this
Speaker 4: well I talk about the word compassion again, I wasn't
Speaker 4: receiving his compassion. I felt instead I was watching a performance.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I just rejected it. And I was furious at
Speaker 4: being let down by Jesus. And I say that in
Speaker 4: all sincerity. I felt really let down. I was like, Wow,
Speaker 4: this is a horrible, horrible sham. As I've gotten older,
Speaker 4: I see organized religion in a completely different light now.
Speaker 4: But I was looking at it very simply as a child,
Speaker 4: of like this was something I believed in. I've found
Speaker 4: out a load of Bolics, and I'm furious about it,
Speaker 4: and I reject it completely.
Speaker 2: Where did all that passion and excitement and love that
Speaker 2: you were, you know, giving to Jesus and giving to religion.
Speaker 2: You were devout and you were such a good student.
Speaker 2: Where did all that go? Once you decided religion isn't
Speaker 2: for me?
Speaker 4: It went into music. Primarily. I was very active in
Speaker 4: an all female choir, which I loved and was obsessed by,
Speaker 4: and I was a member of the school orchestra. I
Speaker 4: played violin, piano, clarinet. You know, I was a musical person,
Speaker 4: and I also got involved on the stage, you know,
Speaker 4: with dramatic arts. I had an amazing teacher actually at school.
Speaker 4: She was a bit of a miss gene Brodie type
Speaker 4: who plucked a couple of girls, I being one of
Speaker 4: them from her year of kids and encouraged us to
Speaker 4: join an Edinburgh youth theater and that became it sort
Speaker 4: of an obsession for me.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I was so lucky.
Speaker 4: I had amazing, amazing teachers because Scotland in the seventies
Speaker 4: they plowed a lot of money into education and the
Speaker 4: school that I was at was attached to a very
Speaker 4: prestigious music school called Saint Mary's, so we had we
Speaker 4: had a music studio.
Speaker 3: Yes, I was. I was really spoiled.
Speaker 4: I had an incredible education thanks to the Scottish government
Speaker 4: at the time.
Speaker 2: What was the rock scene like in Scotland when you
Speaker 2: were a teenager? Were you going out and seeing bands
Speaker 2: or were you more focused on what you were doing
Speaker 2: with the drama class and or were you out were
Speaker 2: you sort of like at bars and seeing shows.
Speaker 4: Well, I didn't have any money, so I was being
Speaker 4: punished because when at thirteen years old, I got caught smoking,
Speaker 4: so I got no pocket money. So I couldn't actually
Speaker 4: go to very many shows. So it's much later on
Speaker 4: that I started going to see you know, Susie and
Speaker 4: the Bansheese or the water Boys or the Smiths or like.
Speaker 4: I saw a lot of amazing shows, but that was
Speaker 4: much later on. When we were young, the rock scene
Speaker 4: in Scotland hadn't really come to much because we didn't
Speaker 4: have a music industry. Everything had to go through London. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and so we had a very sort of disparate music
Speaker 4: scene up in Scotland that started to change in the eighties.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it wasn't it wasn't thriving, to be fair.
Speaker 2: It was Jesus a Mary Chainer from Scotland, right.
Speaker 4: Hell yeah they are, I mean we have We had
Speaker 4: amazing We had amazing.
Speaker 3: Artists, you know.
Speaker 4: We had like the associates Jesus and Mary Chain and
Speaker 4: my arguably one of my favorite bands of all time,
Speaker 4: the Cocktail Twins.
Speaker 2: Oh wow cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we claimed them as ours, you know.
Speaker 4: But we had a lot of great punk bands, like
Speaker 4: there was Zillows and Exploited and.
Speaker 3: We were very lucky.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I couldn't afford to go to any the
Speaker 4: shows because I didn't have any money.
Speaker 2: I was so curious about your post high school life.
Speaker 2: I think it's around that time that you joined your
Speaker 2: first band, but you were just sort of still living
Speaker 2: at home but sort of floating around a little bit.
Speaker 2: And what do you remember about that time?
Speaker 4: Well, again, I was really spoiled because our parents basically
Speaker 4: kept us in the family home until we basically wanted
Speaker 4: to leave. And I didn't leave my family home until
Speaker 4: I was about twenty three. I was it was ridiculous,
Speaker 4: but it was because my parents were so sort of
Speaker 4: like easy Usye, they let us come and go as
Speaker 4: we saw fit. I mean, I was very rebellious, and
Speaker 4: I think my parents were smart enough to realize if
Speaker 4: we fight her, she will win.
Speaker 2: So she has no compassion.
Speaker 3: She has no compassion at all.
Speaker 4: And so instead of stamping on my neck, what they
Speaker 4: did was they just bounce back and let me be
Speaker 4: and let me destroy basically my like my education. I
Speaker 4: realized now, like they were just obviously like like, Okay,
Speaker 4: we're going to let her do her thing. You know,
Speaker 4: she's going to drive into a wall and you know,
Speaker 4: hopefully she won't be blood too bloodied. But I failed
Speaker 4: my schooling basically, And my dad said well, you need
Speaker 4: to get a job. It's that simple. And so I
Speaker 4: went and worked in a teen clothing store, which is
Speaker 4: kind of like Forever twenty one. It was sort of
Speaker 4: like that, were you like a cool shop girl or
Speaker 4: I was a cool shop girl. I mean I didn't
Speaker 4: think I was cool, but I was. And people used
Speaker 4: to tell people even today, go, I remember you from
Speaker 4: Miss Selfridge.
Speaker 3: I thought you were the coolest girl.
Speaker 4: You know. And we had like I was doing my
Speaker 4: hair up in crazy hair styles and I worked at
Speaker 4: the makeup station for a while and I got to
Speaker 4: paint people's.
Speaker 3: Faces and it was great.
Speaker 4: Oh, but then I had a bad attitude towards some
Speaker 4: of the customers. I got relegated to the changing room,
Speaker 4: which I hated, as you can imagine, and then I
Speaker 4: was so rude. I got into an altercation with the customer.
Speaker 4: I was then relegated to the stockroom and that.
Speaker 2: Was the end of my Wow, like, she cannot be
Speaker 2: around people.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know.
Speaker 4: I'd see customers like treat the clothes poorly, throw them
Speaker 4: on the floor of the fitting room and then walk out,
Speaker 4: and I'd be, excuse me, you need to pick that
Speaker 4: up and take it back to me. Here at the
Speaker 4: station and they would throw it on my lap and
Speaker 4: I would throw it right back at and I'd get
Speaker 4: in trouble for that, like throw her in the back exactly,
Speaker 4: we're putting her upstairs and yeah. So that's that's what
Speaker 4: happened to my glorious career in miss Selfridge. But at nighttime,
Speaker 4: I was playing in a band and I was also
Speaker 4: a big clubber. I love to dance, so I'd go
Speaker 4: to this club called the Hooch Couch Club, which was
Speaker 4: my favorite club in Edinburgh, and they played incredible music
Speaker 4: and they had amazing bands that would come and play
Speaker 4: and yeah, and it was full of people with incredible style.
Speaker 4: And even to this day, I'm like, that is the
Speaker 4: coolest scene I've ever been in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, non, And it's extra cool because back then there
Speaker 2: wasn't the Internet, so people couldn't just like order like
Speaker 2: random shit online that they saw somebody else wearing. It
Speaker 2: was people actually picking pieces themselves and putting things together exactly.
Speaker 4: And we didn't have much money, so we were really
Speaker 4: into the vintage clothing stores, you know, so everybody looked different,
Speaker 4: nobody looked the same, you know. Now I look at
Speaker 4: kids and I'm like, why are you wearing white like
Speaker 4: cut off mid drift T shirts and baggy jeans and
Speaker 4: your hair straight like a Kardashian and you've got the
Speaker 4: long nails like a Gardashian and you've got the same
Speaker 4: exact same sneakers on. Like, I don't get it. I'm
Speaker 4: like really curious. When we were young, we would die.
Speaker 4: We'd rather die than look like someone else.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Yes, once you were in a band. In the band
Speaker 2: was touring, and it sounds like you weren't making like
Speaker 2: real money, but you were able to support yourself at
Speaker 2: some point right.
Speaker 4: Well again, Luckily for me, my parents had shoved me
Speaker 4: out of the house, so I didn't really need that
Speaker 4: much money. I certainly didn't make much money, but I
Speaker 4: realized now looking.
Speaker 3: Back, I just did it. Literally. I loved it.
Speaker 4: I got excited by it, and I had a lot
Speaker 4: of like tenacity, Like I sang back up with another
Speaker 4: girl in the band that I was in called Gouby
Speaker 4: Miss McKenzie, and she would leave recording sessions early because
Speaker 4: she'd get tired. She'd be like, I need to go
Speaker 4: to bed, Like I can't handle this. I would be
Speaker 4: there all night long to sing two lines as a
Speaker 4: backing vocalist. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I just believed in it.
Speaker 4: And I wanted to be there and wanted to be
Speaker 4: part of it. And I think that tenacity has served
Speaker 4: me really well throughout my whole career. Is it's just like,
Speaker 4: I am not the girl that goes home. It's the
Speaker 4: same girl who read the entire Bible.
Speaker 3: Exactly. She's nuts keep away from her same girl.
Speaker 2: Was your path a lot different from your sister's paths?
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we were very different people. And again I stuck
Speaker 4: in at everything I ever did. You know, I took
Speaker 4: everything I did seriously. I stuck in at choir, stuck
Speaker 4: in at you theater, stuck in at bali.
Speaker 2: You know, my.
Speaker 4: Sisters were much less focused than I was. They were
Speaker 4: just sort of like, yeah, maybe i'll play the piano
Speaker 4: for a bit, but then i'll give that up and
Speaker 4: then I'll go riding for a bit. They had less
Speaker 4: interest in sort of the arts than I did. And
Speaker 4: my big sister, God bless her. All she wanted to
Speaker 4: do her whole life was be a nurse. She just
Speaker 4: retired actually, but she's a very committed intensive care nurse
Speaker 4: and she's a brilliant one.
Speaker 2: Do you think being a middle child has influenced your
Speaker 2: relationships in the way that you relate to other people,
Speaker 2: like even in the band, does that come up the
Speaker 2: way that you sort of view life.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely everything is colored by my position in the family.
Speaker 4: And I'm not being flipped. And I actually saw article
Speaker 4: in the BBC that they've done a study on this,
Speaker 4: and they asked oldest children and youngest children if they
Speaker 4: enjoyed their position in the family, and they all apparently
Speaker 4: are very high percentage. Geneway said yes, but all the
Speaker 4: middle children said they hated the fact that they were
Speaker 4: the middle child. And I was one of them. Oh,
Speaker 4: I'm beginning now in my old age to go. Actually
Speaker 4: it was quite cool because it really twisted me. And
Speaker 4: being twisted is really good for being an artist, So
Speaker 4: it's okay. It all worked out in the end. But
Speaker 4: I was miserable because I felt like I didn't enjoy
Speaker 4: any privilege, Like my big sister got to have all
Speaker 4: the responsibility and freedom, my little sister got all the coddling,
Speaker 4: and I got all the second hand clothes, and it
Speaker 4: made me insane, you know, And it also made me
Speaker 4: hungry for love and hungry for connection, and that has
Speaker 4: been a difficult void to fill in my life.
Speaker 3: You know, Oh that makes.
Speaker 2: Me so sad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't feel sad.
Speaker 4: It's been good for me and I have an amazing
Speaker 4: husband who's.
Speaker 3: Fixed the whole. Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: But for so long I realized I was just I
Speaker 4: don't know, I was just wanting to feel like somebody
Speaker 4: saw me. I felt really invisible as a middle child.
Speaker 2: But then when you go on to become a lead
Speaker 2: singer of a band and you occupy that position, which
Speaker 2: is the central position, literally with a spotlight on you,
Speaker 2: you're considered an it girl. How does that not fill
Speaker 2: the whole? I mean, I know it doesn't.
Speaker 4: Well, in some ways it does fill the whole, Like
Speaker 4: when I'm standing on stage like you say, right and
Speaker 4: nestled in the middle of the band. They're flanking me
Speaker 4: and there's a light on me, and I feel seen
Speaker 4: and I feel understood. That has fixed it to a
Speaker 4: certain degree. But of course you can't spend your whole
Speaker 4: life doing that, and so you have to fix yourself
Speaker 4: outside of work. And I definitely have done that. But
Speaker 4: I do notice I love like even now, like I'll
Speaker 4: love sitting in between two people, and I love being.
Speaker 3: A Shirley Sandwich.
Speaker 4: You know, it's it's sort of weird, but I like
Speaker 4: really gravitate towards it, like wow, Yeah, it's funny. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm grateful for it because I really do think it's
Speaker 4: helped me in my career. I think it's helped me
Speaker 4: be really good at what I do. Yeah, is because
Speaker 4: a lot of artists, creative artists are not comfortable in
Speaker 4: a live situation.
Speaker 3: They don't enjoy it. They do it because they have to,
Speaker 3: you mean.
Speaker 2: Live at the stage performing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, live on stage performing They don't love it. They
Speaker 4: don't enjoy it, and I do. I feel like I
Speaker 4: might like my most whole self on stage.
Speaker 2: I imagine as someone who came up and was super
Speaker 2: popular the height of your career, MTV was everything, So
Speaker 2: there was such a strong visual component that came along
Speaker 2: with the success. Did that visual side of it? Did
Speaker 2: that freak you out? Or did it make you feel good?
Speaker 4: I absolutely understood the power of video. Yeah, And I
Speaker 4: absolutely understood the power of identity. I'd been in a band,
Speaker 4: as I said before, for ten years before I joined Garbage,
Speaker 4: and that band had taught me a lot about what
Speaker 4: were your tools of the trade, so to speak. In
Speaker 4: and so I understood that videos and the visualization of
Speaker 4: the band were primary importance, and I put a lot
Speaker 4: of energy into that. And I also, having been a
Speaker 4: previous clubbing girl, I understood that what you wore was
Speaker 4: also important, and I put a lot of weight behind
Speaker 4: that too. And that sort of emphasis that I put
Speaker 4: on that kind of thing was still quite unusual. It
Speaker 4: wasn't part of course, And of course we arrived somewhat
Speaker 4: at the tail end of grunge music, where everybody was
Speaker 4: sort of playing glamour down. They were crushing glamour. They
Speaker 4: were doing sort of a much more sort of low
Speaker 4: key presentation, and I was like, I'm bringing in some
Speaker 4: club flavors here, and I like wore the neon dresses,
Speaker 4: and I wore I wore what I called like sort
Speaker 4: of pop star makeup. You know, I wasn't coming out
Speaker 4: with disheveled hair and no makeup. I came home with
Speaker 4: a full face and glamorous.
Speaker 3: Hair, and so I really stood out.
Speaker 4: You know, when we came out, everybody was like, well,
Speaker 4: who's this, you know, and so yeah, I did know
Speaker 4: that it was a powerful tool, but unfortunately for me.
Speaker 4: When I did start attracting a lot of attention, it
Speaker 4: became something unpleasant for me. I didn't enjoy the attention
Speaker 4: the way I thought I would. I didn't revel in
Speaker 4: the attention, and it started to make me a little unhappy.
Speaker 2: Do you know why was it different attention than you
Speaker 2: were anticipating?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was different kind of attention. I felt a
Speaker 4: lot of expectation on my shoulders to present a certain way.
Speaker 4: And of course I'm not a particularly vain person, as
Speaker 4: I said earlier, like I understood why I had to
Speaker 4: present a certain way and it was important, and I
Speaker 4: don't think it was born of vanity. I mean, maybe
Speaker 4: people that know me better would argue that, but I
Speaker 4: don't think so. I just don't think I'm a particularly
Speaker 4: vain person. But I had a lot of self doubt
Speaker 4: and low physical ast. Yeah, I didn't feel beautiful, and
Speaker 4: now looking back, I'm like, my god, you were so beautiful,
Speaker 4: but you didn't think you were, you know, And so
Speaker 4: I was hard on myself and if I didn't look
Speaker 4: like the version of myself that presented on MTV, I
Speaker 4: felt I was falling short of the mark, and I
Speaker 4: felt I was disappointing everybody, and I was letting the
Speaker 4: band down, and that if I was really a good
Speaker 4: like music personality or lead singer, I would be able
Speaker 4: to achieve the height you know of that I was
Speaker 4: achieving on film, I would be able to muster that
Speaker 4: in my real life.
Speaker 3: And I couldn't.
Speaker 4: And therefore I felt, Oh, I'm not meant to be
Speaker 4: doing this. I mean, I really did a number on myself.
Speaker 4: I was like, I'm not meant to be doing this.
Speaker 4: I'm not good enough, I'm not beautiful, stylish enough, I'm
Speaker 4: not this, I'm not that, and it just it became
Speaker 4: really unhealthy and horrible.
Speaker 2: Did you have anybody back then that you could talk
Speaker 2: to you about that, any other women who were in
Speaker 2: a similar position.
Speaker 4: No, I didn't, And I think that as part of
Speaker 4: the problem is a lot of my friends back home,
Speaker 4: for whatever reason, just didn't really want to engage with
Speaker 4: me about my career. I think it was very difficult,
Speaker 4: you know, I think, and this happens a lot. I
Speaker 4: think to people who gain public success, you know, a
Speaker 4: visibly successful career in the public eye, I think it's
Speaker 4: hard on your friends sometimes and it disrupts the power
Speaker 4: balance between friends where previously it's all eglitarian and then
Speaker 4: their attitude towards you change. Is my attitude didn't change
Speaker 4: towards them, but their attitude towards me did, and I
Speaker 4: think they projected a lot onto me, and it was
Speaker 4: very lonely. And I also, deliberately, and this is on me,
Speaker 4: I diminished my own light because I felt it was
Speaker 4: hurting the people I loved. And again I'm not saying
Speaker 4: this was sane or healthy thinking this was a very
Speaker 4: destructive part of my personality, but I would everything. And
Speaker 4: then of course you grow up and you start to
Speaker 4: resent the fact that you've diminished your success and you've
Speaker 4: diminished the things that have happened to you, and you
Speaker 4: haven't owned the moments that really were deserving of celebration.
Speaker 4: You know, when you meet Madonna, you want to go
Speaker 4: home and scream I fucking met Madonna tonight and she
Speaker 4: told me I was amazing, and you know, you want
Speaker 4: to scream it from the rooftops, but you keep it
Speaker 4: to yourself because you know that your friends are not
Speaker 4: going to.
Speaker 3: Enjoy that particular boast.
Speaker 4: Yes, and so it's a very complicated experience. And yeah,
Speaker 4: I didn't know any other women in the business, yet okay,
Speaker 4: who did what I did? And so yeah, I was
Speaker 4: totally on my own. And of course I'm in this
Speaker 4: band with three older men who just moved through the
Speaker 4: world very differently from me.
Speaker 1: One last break and we back with Shirley Manson.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate how open you are about your in
Speaker 2: the music industry and how reflective you are. And I
Speaker 2: wonder does that have anything to do with you hosting
Speaker 2: a podcast and being an interviewer. Do you think you
Speaker 2: sort of understand the process in a different way now
Speaker 2: after having that experience.
Speaker 4: Well, I definitely understand the process a wee bit better
Speaker 4: than I did. I don't think I understand it more.
Speaker 4: If anything, I understand it less, and I'm much more
Speaker 4: self conscious. I have a deep respect for journalists that
Speaker 4: I speak to who I and this never shame on me,
Speaker 4: but this never ever struck my mind. But I understand
Speaker 4: how much work goes into interviewing somebody I had no idea.
Speaker 4: So I have a lot more respect, I guess, for
Speaker 4: the process, and I do try and honor it, you know,
Speaker 4: because I, yeah, I know what the journalist has done
Speaker 4: on the other side, But hosting a podcast was utterly terrifying,
Speaker 4: and I really realized how out of my depth I was,
Speaker 4: and it cosed me a little distress and stress I
Speaker 4: felt because I wanted to honor the person I was interviewing,
Speaker 4: and I felt like, of course I didn't want to
Speaker 4: just ask the same old, same oen.
Speaker 2: Totally.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it caused me a lot of banks to never again.
Speaker 2: I wonder if, though, there is an advantage that you
Speaker 2: might have because you know, you're an artist talking to
Speaker 2: other artists, and artists naturally feel a lot more comfortable
Speaker 2: in that situation with, you know, someone who maybe can
Speaker 2: understand just how a creative person might think or move
Speaker 2: in the world. So that might actually be a big
Speaker 2: advantage that you have as an interviewer.
Speaker 4: I mean maybe, I certainly think there was no suspicion
Speaker 4: that I had some kind of high agenda, you know,
Speaker 4: so everybody was very relaxed and open with me. It
Speaker 4: was me he was uptight. You know, I was the
Speaker 4: one who was bringing a lot of stress to the equation.
Speaker 4: But you know, there is a certain kind of understanding
Speaker 4: with certain artists that you enjoy as a fellow artist.
Speaker 4: You know, when you connect with an artist that really
Speaker 4: gets you and you really get them. There is a
Speaker 4: sort of level that you get to that I don't
Speaker 4: believe I've ever gotten to in my life outside of music.
Speaker 2: Is there anybody in particular who you've met over the
Speaker 2: years who you really had like an instant connection.
Speaker 4: With Peaches and Karen O and Alanis and Liz Fair,
Speaker 4: you know, all the women that kind of are in
Speaker 4: my sphere. We share a certain kind of understanding and
Speaker 4: a trust, I guess with each other. That is very
Speaker 4: beautiful and consider a great privilege. You know that I'm
Speaker 4: able to communicate with these women and we have these
Speaker 4: profound conversations that just if you don't do what we do,
Speaker 4: you cannot hold this the same conversation.
Speaker 2: You know what types of things come up in those conversations.
Speaker 4: Well, that's private for that, that's private. That's the witches called.
Speaker 4: And what goes on in the coven stays in the coven,
Speaker 4: you know. But yeah, can you can just be really
Speaker 4: vulnerable with one another? And yeah, we talk about our
Speaker 4: rule as artists in the world, you know. And yes,
Speaker 4: it's a real gift, Consider a real gift.
Speaker 2: Do you remember any moments? I mean, now you can
Speaker 2: look back and hopefully celebrate those moments like meeting Madonna
Speaker 2: or other big rock star moments where you got to
Speaker 2: meet somebody who you just idolized or really respected and
Speaker 2: it actually went well, like it was a good experience.
Speaker 4: All of my meetings with my heroes have gone well,
Speaker 4: every single one.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've had like just magical moments.
Speaker 4: For that.
Speaker 3: I know myself.
Speaker 4: No, I haven't met a single asshole and they've all
Speaker 4: blown me away. But I will attribute some of that
Speaker 4: to myself because I had really good taste in the
Speaker 4: people that I choose to admire and be a pupil
Speaker 4: of in the music industry. Like everybody that I was
Speaker 4: obsessed with, I've met all of them.
Speaker 2: Who's someone in particular that you can share a story
Speaker 2: about I've.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, there's been so many. It feels obscene
Speaker 4: to boast, you know, but I've just enjoyed incredible interactions.
Speaker 3: With so many.
Speaker 4: I mean, the funniest one, I'll tell you the funniest one. Okay,
Speaker 4: I met Patti Smith. We were at the Montrose Jazz
Speaker 4: Festival and she was actually opening for Garbage. This is
Speaker 4: how ridiculous the music industry is and how tits up
Speaker 4: it gets you know, we were the brand new thing,
Speaker 4: so we were given this high position on the bill.
Speaker 4: But Pat Smith is opening for us, and I was
Speaker 4: obscene and I was embarrassed by it. But anyway, we
Speaker 4: driving late on our bus. We get to the venue.
Speaker 4: I am starving and I haven't eaten all day and
Speaker 4: I get a I don't know how I remember this,
Speaker 4: but I got a green tie curry and I I'm
Speaker 4: tucking into it and there's a knock on the door
Speaker 4: and I go come in. And then there's another knock
Speaker 4: on the door and I go come in, and I'm
Speaker 4: scoffing this food like a greedy bastard like I am.
Speaker 4: And then there's a third knock on the door, and
Speaker 4: I go for fox sake, and I get up off
Speaker 4: my seat and I throw the door open. And who's
Speaker 4: standing there but the Great Patti Smith, a serene and
Speaker 4: goddess like as you can imagine, Yes she and very
Speaker 4: quietly she said, I just wanted to come by because
Speaker 4: I won't have time after my set, and I wanted
Speaker 4: to say hi. And I'm like, oh, oh, hi, you know,
Speaker 4: trying to be all of a sudden miss nice, you know, mismannerd.
Speaker 4: We talk a little, and of course I'm loving to her,
Speaker 4: and she's very graceful and elegant, and off she shuffles,
Speaker 4: and I shut the door and I sit down and
Speaker 4: I put my fork into my green curry and I
Speaker 4: look up and there's a mirror right in front of me,
Speaker 4: because I'm at my dressing table. I look up in
Speaker 4: the mirror and there's green curry sauce all over my face, and.
Speaker 3: I'm just like, oh my god, Oh my god.
Speaker 4: So that is one of the funny moments. I'll never
Speaker 4: forget that I was so humiliated and it's all on me.
Speaker 2: So fun Is there anything else about the new album?
Speaker 2: I want to make sure you're able to say everything
Speaker 2: you want to say about the process or upcoming tour.
Speaker 2: Is there anything that we didn't cover?
Speaker 4: I think you've done an amazing job, and I'm so
Speaker 4: old over by obviously like the amount of work you
Speaker 4: put into this. I mean, we touched on this earlier,
Speaker 4: but I'm just really grateful to talk to somebody like you.
Speaker 4: You know, as if older woman in the music industry,
Speaker 4: how people relate to you shifts, you know, yes, and
Speaker 4: you're sort of invisible in a funny way. Yeah, So
Speaker 4: to talk to somebody of your caliber and get to
Speaker 4: answer really wonderful questions.
Speaker 3: I'm very grateful for.
Speaker 4: I don't I couldn't begin to tell you how many
Speaker 4: interviews I've done, you know, over the last few years
Speaker 4: where I'm thinking to myself and I have I am
Speaker 4: not the most confident, like, sort of believing in myself
Speaker 4: kind of person. You know. I don't know, I am
Speaker 4: the fucking shit and you should be so thrilled to
Speaker 4: talk to me. I'm never like that. I'm just sort
Speaker 4: of like, oh my god, I can't believe that Rolling
Speaker 4: Stone would want to speak to me.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I never take it for granted or anything like that.
Speaker 4: But sometimes I'm sitting, you know, talking to journalists and
Speaker 4: I think, is this really the level that we're at.
Speaker 4: I'm an artist, I've been doing this for thirty years,
Speaker 4: you know, and you're talking to me about a dress
Speaker 4: I wore on stage. You know that you thought made
Speaker 4: me look like a green witch? Are you fucking proud
Speaker 4: of your mind?
Speaker 2: You know it's a shame on them.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, well, you know, it's just it is what
Speaker 4: it is, right. But as I said, I'm just really
Speaker 4: grateful for your time and anybody talking about our work,
Speaker 4: our new record in any context, I'm grateful for there's
Speaker 4: so many artists out there, there's so many records, and
Speaker 4: to be given an opportunity to just say, hey, we've
Speaker 4: made this record.
Speaker 3: We think it's really good.
Speaker 2: It is really good. I sec thank you.
Speaker 4: But we made it with a lot of love, you know,
Speaker 4: and we have no real expectations of it, but it
Speaker 4: has brought us a gift into the world, and I
Speaker 4: hope it's received that way, and hopefully it's just a
Speaker 4: part another moment in a career that will continue.
Speaker 3: That's what I hope.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is going to continue. Thank you so much, Shirley.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you so much.
Speaker 4: I appreciate you, Leiah, and thank you. It's been really
Speaker 4: lovely talking to you. And I'm yeah, lots of love.
Speaker 2: Thank you, good night, bye bye bye.
Speaker 1: An episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist
Speaker 1: of our favorite Garbage tracks, as well as their latest album,
Speaker 1: Let All That We Imagine Be the Light. Be sure
Speaker 1: to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast
Speaker 1: to see all of our video interviews, and be sure
Speaker 1: to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod.
Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter at Broken Red. Broken
Speaker 1: Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing
Speaker 1: help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is
Speaker 1: Ben Tolliny. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
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Speaker 1: Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.